Lady Pirates drop season opener

California wins in two 25-21, 25-23

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By Chris Bowie

Boonville Daily News - Boonville, MO

By Chris Bowie

Posted Sep. 6, 2013 at 12:05 PM

By Chris Bowie
Posted Sep. 6, 2013 at 12:05 PM

California

Considering it was California’s second match and Boonville’s first last night in California, the outcome could have easily been different than the 25-21, 25-23 setback for the Lady Pirates volleyball team.

Boonville volleyball coach Susie Stone said the game plan going into the match was to keep the ball control steady and move the ball around and keep California’s strong blocker moving across the net to minimize her blocking attempts on attacks.

Unfortunately for the Lady Pirates, they could do neither as Deeken was able to alter the pace of the game.

“We allowed her to take us out of an aggressive offensive mind set at times and we paid the price,” Stone said. “When we had the opportunities with her on the back row to make large offensive scoring runs, we failed to execute consistently and therefore did not come out ahead at the end of the match.”

Despite the two-set loss, Stone said there were strong rallies in both matches with some well dug attacks.

“We need to clean up our transition game out of block coverage,” Stone said. “We had to make multiple quick decisions and we need to work on becoming more confident in our teammates decisions and that will come with time and experience. We hurt ourselves as a team at the service line during both matches. We need to work every phase of the game such as blocking, serve-receive, hitting and setting. I was pleased with our effort in tonight’s matches.”

Stone said California was definitely a quality opponent to open up against, though. She said she saw one of the strongest players they will see all year but the girls will have to learn ways to get around one player and not let that alter their game.

The Boonville Lady Pirates volleyball team will host the Columbia Hickman Kewpies on Tuesday, Sept. 10th at the Windsor gymnasium starting at 6 p.m.